The Looking Glass House
by Aerith Queen of Cetra
Summary: .:SpikexFaye and ViciousxFaye:. "Can someone please help me?" An extra drop of fuel can take you far beyond the realms of safety and for Faye Valentine, it brought her into the hands of the Red Dragon Syndicate.
1. The Road Not Taken

_Title:_ The Looking-Glass House

_Author:_ Aerith Queen of Cetra

_Chapters_: 1/19

_Summary_: "Can someone please help me..." An extra drop of fuel can take you far beyond the realms of safety and for Faye Valentine, it brought her into the hands of the Red Dragon Syndicate. .:SpikexFaye and slight ViciousxFaye:.

_Genre: _Angst/Romance

_Beta'd:_ Nu-uh!

_Warnings_: Angst, mentions of torture, slight OOCness, drifting from the plot.

**Disclaimer:** I have never owned Cowboy Bebop despite what my TV License has been edited to say...

**Author's Comments:** This is a what-if story blown completely out of proportion xD When Faye was stranded and she called for help, what are the odds that someone else would pick up the transmission?

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Road Not Taken**

* * *

_Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever._

- Keri Russell -

* * *

Luck was not the ally of one Faye Valentine. From all of the crazy stunts she pulled from the moment she was unfrozen until her brief encounter with the two Cowboy's of the Bebop and their loyal little mascot, she had held this as her personal philosophy of life.

However, for once she believed that perhaps she was maintaining the respect of Lady Luck as she willed her ship further away from the Bebop and the catastrophic results of the Casino ploy. But this disappeared as she fled past the moon of Ganymede and further away, closer to Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, where she unwillingly slowed to a complete halt.

Her fingers pitter-pattered across the console, a number of flashing lights and overlapping blue windows on the screen replying to her desperate attempts.

"Out of... fuel?" She strained out in disbelief before yelling in frustration and smacking the console with her balled fist.

Breathing heavily, she looked out of the clear, egg shaped cabin of her ship and pondered what she should do.

The emerald eyed, would-be pensioner had to groan in order to keep herself from self-abuse as she lightly tapped a large button and murmured gently, "Hello, is there anybody out there? I'm kind of out of fuel at the moment and I need help. Please respond."

Silence answered her and she hurled abuse back before repeating her distress signal. Again. And again. And again.

Faye groaned and fell back against the seat, looking around the dead of space, the empty, desolate place without any remorse for her.

She sat there for several moments, perhaps even a full hour, after the supply of snacks in her ship had been diminished, before she decided to plead her case to Lady Luck again. Placing her hands together in a praying position, she whispered. "Please, oh please. I don't ask for much... not really... but please I really need help, please help me."

"What are your co-ordinates?"**  
**  
Faye screamed her head off at the response before she realised that she had left her com system on. A smile spread across her features and she scrambled as close to the device as she possibly could, "I-I'll send you them now."

Once pleasantries had been exchanged in the form of degrees, Faye's tiny ship was overshadowed by a larger grey ship, which immediately pulled hers into its wide dock.

Faye thanked whatever guardian angel was watching over her and leapt out of her ship once the doors had shut with a clinical slam.

Two men in blue jumpsuits immediately stepped out of a brightly illuminated doorway, followed soon by a tall thin man in a dark suit with slicked back hair.

She put on her best seductive face as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Why hello there. Thank you for responding to my distress call."

Her eyes followed the two men in the jumpsuits as they moved to examine her ship and she assumed them to be mechanics of some sort. She turned her gaze back to the more official looking man who had stopped his trek before her with a rather wry smile.

"Not at all ma'am. We could hardly ignore a young woman, a very beauty young woman might I add, who was in need."

His calm and complementing voice caused Faye to smile in appreciation and she willed her cheeks to produce a dusty tint, which seemed to have worked as his lips spread further apart.

One of the mechanics came back and mumbled something in the suited man's ear to which he nodded and whispered something back.

Faye's slender eyebrows creased, "Is there a problem?"

The dark haired man resumed his smile, "Only slightly. It seems that one side of your ship has been damaged, which could be contributed to your sudden loss of fuel."

Faye couldn't resist the curl of her lips into a snarl as she stared at her ship through the corner of her eye, blaming the first face that came to mind. '_Damn you, Spike...'_

"So I'm afraid you're stuck with us until we touchdown on Mars."

"Mars?" She blinked. "How long will that take?"

"An hour at the very least. I'll take you somewhere where you will be comfortable whilst you wait."

She muttered her thanks and followed him out of the rectangular opening in the wall and down the brightly lit hallway.

Nothing particularly compelling struck her about this ship and, personally, she had found the Bebop more interesting during her brief time there.

She sighed and decided to make the best of her situation as she was led into a, quite definitely, more interesting place than before; into a luxurious and lavishly designed room with those always delightful red and gold sofa's and perfectly polished tables.

Faye smiled as she clasped her hands together over her chest, "This is incredible. You must be a highly successful man, sir...?"

"You may call me Lin for the duration of your stay here." He bowed and moved out of the door.

Alone in the room, she sat down on the sofa and graciously enjoyed the soft sinking feeling she felt as she lay there.

Faye's forest green eyes moved to look at the window and she blinked in surprise as a familiar long ship began to move past the clear wall.

"That ship again... his ship... that damn Spike's..." She stood up and moved to the window to stare at it. "Only moments apart, to think... if Lin hadn't been here then I would've been caught by them again."

She shook her head in relief and, feeling her curiosity rise at his absence, moved to the doorway to find Lin.

With a loud click of her heels against the metallic floor, she stared down the hallway she had just came from and then down the one on the opposite side, which presumably led to the cockpit of the ship, and she walked that way.

This end of the hallway led Faye to a door hinting to the finale of the ship and as she lifted her hand to push open the door, loud voices piqued her interest and she listened carefully to what they were saying.

Random phrases were thrown around, none of them connecting enough for her to make sense of the conversation and she began repeating what she heard in a tiny whisper.

"Moving... close... sore... tree... spy... kill... kill?" That last word made her interest soar again and she pressed her ear against the door carefully yet with a hint of desperation.

The words became much clearer. "He should be... in approx... two hours... then... we can initiate... the plan..."

_'They're plotting someone's murder?'_ Her mind twisted around this thought and she bit her lip, considering her own sense of safety upon this ship for the first time.

"Yes..." This voice, so unlike Lin's, gruff and unforgiving, sent chills down Faye's spine and she felt a sudden urge to move away yet her blasted curiosity, or perhaps simply fear, refused to allow her that option.

"Yes... for... must be... and then... the Red... Syndicate will... supreme!" This new voice was irrelevant to Faye, simply the word 'syndicate' sent her body in motion and she flung herself away from the door as if it had burnt her.

Her heart stopped at the thunderous noise that bounced off of the walls from her sudden movement and any thoughts of silence escaped her panicked mind as she picked herself up and fled down the corridor.

Those two blasted men in jumpsuits came marching mechanically up the other end of the hallway and Faye, in desperation, lunged into the closest room to her and twisted the lock.

She cursed her luck that she ended up back in that same, once elegant seeming, room as before or at least one startlingly similar.

The door behind her heaving body echoed with the inevitable sounds of these strangers' attempts to open the door, attempts which she had no doubt would be successful.

Faye instinctively backed away from the quaking metal door, almost tripping over the glistening table as she backed away as far as she could from those horrendous bangs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the Bebop still sailing with carefree grace across the expanse of space and it was during this time that those men had finally broken into the room.

She had no time to push herself away to make a run for the door as Lin made a graceful leap across the table, a white cloth, no doubt lain with chloroform, resting sinisterly in his hand.

She swivelled her body around, her front pressed against the window as the cloth's overwhelming sauna hit her senses.

Her hands pressed against the window, placed perfectly around the casually passing brown ship she had only just escaped from, as if to pull it closer in a second beacon of distress.

Moving closer to the floor as the rough cloth was practically stuffed down her throat, her hands automatically moving to grasp the silken sleeves of her captor's suit, the last thought that came to her as her mind was enshrined in darkness was a simple curse.

_'Lady Luck is a bitch...'_

* * *

O.o;; First chapter I assume? It made me giggle that I had the Bebop pass the window at the end. Irony! XD

Oh well, here's where it all kicks off! I blame that what-if episode of Doctor Who for actually making me get off my butt and write this thing. So... please review!


	2. The Devils Proposition

_Title:_ The Looking Glass House

_Author:_ Aerith Queen of Cetra

_Chapters_: 2/18

_Summary_: "Can someone please help me..." An extra drop of fuel can take you far beyond the realms of safety and for Faye Valentine, it brought her into the hands of the Red Dragon Syndicate. .:SpikexFaye and slight ViciousxFaye:.

_Genre: _Angst/Romance

_Beta'd:_ Nu-uh!

_Warnings_: Angst, mentions of torture, slight OOCness, drifting from the plot.

**Disclaimer:** I have never owned Cowboy Bebop despite what my TV License has been edited to say...

**Author's Comments:** Woo!! Thank you for reviewing everybody! I'm surprised anyone reviewed at all, but thanks for doing so! I hope this chapter of the Looking Glass House is to your satisfaction!

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Devils Proposition**

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_Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever._

- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing -

* * *

Three ancient relics of men stared upon a number of younger subordinates, who bowed respectfully to them, as they were, not for the first time, faced with a conundrum.

The trilogy of elders muttered their verdict on what to do about this new arrival and pieces of information were exchanged between all of them over the problem.

There were usually two ways of dealing with a problem of this sort; death or compromise.

The information was sorted and the three elders passed along a piece of paper, placing it securely in the clutches of a trusted advisor.

"So we have deemed it, so shall it be."

* * *

She blinked and the world hissed back at her in a painful spark of luminous fluid. The first thing that hit Faye was the obvious; she was bound, painfully tightly, to a table.

Struggling against the smooth curves of metal in the form of bonds, she validated her early suspicions that she was, indeed, stuck.

Her body ached from the awkward position her body was wrenched in, telling her in its subtle little way that she had been trapped there for a long time.

Once she had gotten accustomed to the fact that she was alone, restrained and forced to stare at the eye splintering form of a buzzing neon light, Faye made it a top priority to lick her chapped lips and wince at the lingering after-taste of whatever they had used to knock her out.

And in a flood of dazed memories, it finally hit her just who _they_ were. A Syndicate. One of the lowest most depraved forms of organisation, the very epitome of the criminal underworld.

As she wrenched her wrists around the cuffs, her mind rallied together the various clippings of murders attributed to some sort of new Syndicate that she had collected in her memory from newspapers and television stations.

_'Red...'_ her mind suddenly whispered. _'He said red... is that... the Syndicate's name perhaps?'_

Faye was irritated to find that a certain name of a certain Syndicate with a certain colour involved in it continued to evade her thoughts and so her mind toyed with several ideas of what the name could be.

"The Red...Arrow Syndicate? No I don't think so... The Red... Cross Syndicate? No... The Red... Light Syndicate? I _really _hope not..."

Something clicked for her and animal imagery flew through her head. "The Red... the Red Fox Syndicate? Or... the Red Wolf Syndicate? No... That was the Bad Wolf Syndicate! Ugh... What _is_ it?"

"The Red... the Red... the Red..." Her heart thumped with each syllable as the name dared to pass her lips, bubbling closer and closer to the surface of existence.

Suddenly it was no longer amnesia that prevented her from saying that name. A fresh wave of fear erupted from her dormant body and her two-word mantra maintained a definitely nervous stutter with the impending noise of footsteps pulling towards her location.

"The Red... the Red..." Her eyes refused to shift towards the swishing noise of her cell door opening just as much as her tongue refused to move away from those two syllables.

The definite and deadly footsteps of her new companion, followed by a fluttering noise resembling the joint battering of one thousand eyelashes, sent a new set of tremors flooding up and down her body.

The footsteps stopped. The fluttering stopped. 'The Reds' stopped.

Faye turned to her companion, breaths faltering as she stared into those deadly eyes, marred by rings of insomnia and narrowed in an insane twist.

Her lips formed two new syllables in a terrified whisper.

"_Dragons..._"

* * *

Spike groaned and flopped face first upon the sofa, an expression of lament crossing his features at the lost bounty.

Jet followed him into the living area, rubbing his forehead with his still flesh hand and sighing at his friend's sullen form.

A form of disappointed irritation crossed his mind as he stared at Spike, placing all of the blame of their lost bounty on the blue clad Cowboy.

"You know this wouldn't have happened if it weren't for you, Spike?"

"Yeah yeah... should've worked harder, should've took out all of the viral missiles in time, etcetera etcetera..."

"Not just 'etcetera etcetera', that was an entire district that got overwhelmed by that 'monkey business' retrovirus. It'll take nearly a month to cure all of those people, and not only that, but our bounty was part of the casualties!"

"They'll all get cured, and besides, I managed to narrow it down to just a small percentage of the population, barely point one percent of the eight million, not to mention that I had to climb out into space after that ISSP guy with the virus and I didn't get any thanks, but you don't hear me complaining now, do you?"

Spike lifted his hand and pointed to the sky, "You know, you should blame those eggheads on Ganymede. They should've enclosed the damn things in Hyperspace sooner and then all of this would've been avoided."

A flabbergasted Jet simply groaned his frustrations and stomped off towards the kitchen area, trying to think of ways to stretch out their already minuscule food rations.

Spike felt his own frustrations come out in a different way, thinking instead on how he didn't have to be there, listening to these complaints and he pondered on leaving the ship, if only for the briefest of moments.

This inevitably led him to think of a previous visitor on-board the Bebop, the feisty Faye Valentine, the gypsy lady who had found her freedom once again.

He turned onto his back, arms crossed behind his head as he stared at the ceiling and he thought harder on this subject.

He wondered where she was, probably swindling someone else out of more money, lounging in a fancy hotel, ravishing a lavish banquet.

The soft image of the young woman smiling that same smile that she had given to him as a parting gift caused Spike's mouth to curve into a similar expression and he rolled over onto his side. _'At least someone's better off...'_

* * *

In a swift motion, metal cuffs were released and she was lifted carefully forward.

The gentle manoeuvre may have been interpreted romantically in any other circumstances, but this was far from a lover's touch despite what the seasoned glint in that man's eyes told him.

Faye rubbed those aching red marks with the utmost care and she made it her business to stare away from that penetrating gaze.

He, of course, smiled at that predictable gesture and leant back to resume a formal pose.

"My apologies that you were kept here in such uncomfortable surroundings, Miss Valentine."

His soft voice thundered in her ears and she found herself swirling around in surprise that he knew her name, the grip on her wrist suddenly tightening.

Before she could voice a question at this, he stated, "Of course we know all about you, Faye Valentine of Earth." He turned away from her and stared at the far off wall, skimming the soft feathers of the dark bird on his shoulder inattentively.

"I suppose the infamous Red Dragon Syndicate would have to be completely up to date." She replied with an almost smug smirk, shaky due to the overwhelming amount of nervous apprehension flying through her heart.

He turned back to her with a raised eyebrow and a calm smile, "If you know who we are, then I'm sure you realise what must become of you."

Faye instinctively bit her lip to keep it from quivering and nodded with as much assertion as she could muster and as he pulled a dark cloth from his coat pocket and motioned for her to follow his command, she kept an impressive amount of control and confidence even as she obeyed him.

The cloth went, predictably, around her eyes and with the impending arrival of two new sets of footsteps and the pressure of some new metal rings around her wrists, she felt herself being lead away.

Her nerves seemed to remain calm, surprising even herself with its unbreakable resolve.

She was pulled suddenly to a halt and her 20/20 vision returned.

Three men were positioned before her, kneeling behind an exquisite yellow veil in a perfect line upon rich looking cushions. Their wrinkled faces stared down at her with, what Faye had dubbed, disdain.

_'What are they going to do with me?' _She thought to herself as she was forced to her knees before a lavish wooden table, mahogany perhaps.

"Faye Valentine." They spoke in harmony, shocking the young woman with their intense level of concentration and unity.

She gulped quite audibly and nodded as formally as she could, considering the situation.

"We have a proposition for you, Miss Valentine."

"What kind of proposition?" She questioned, keeping her words to a minimum. She retained a calm expression using the stern stares from Lin, an unknown subordinate and the silver haired male as catalysts for this desired effect.

"Those who uncover anything about our Syndicate must be immediately dealt with, as I'm sure you can understand."

"Of course." She finally replied, deciding that those two words carried the appropriate balance of interest, respect and understanding.

The one in the centre nodded his approval. "We have reviewed every source of information available on you and we have decided on the most appropriate course of action."

Seconds passed into an eternity's worth of nervous heartbeats and she waited for the seniors to state their offer, almost predicting that it would lead to her death.

"We have decided to offer you a permanent position here at our Syndicate against the more... obvious alternative."

"Me? Part of the Red Dragons?" She questioned weakly, hearing a pessimistic chuckle from behind her, the deep cackles telling her instantly that it was the silver haired male.

"Indeed. If you say yes you will remain in service to us from now until the end of your days. Do you accept?"

Faye was shocked and it didn't take long for her to agree to their proposition, as the fear for life had overwhelmed her common sense.

The Three Wise Men gave their blessings in the form of a trilogy of nods and the unknown subordinate stepped forward from their right-hand side, the piece of paper dropping before her upon the table.

Signatures had been placed on the paper by, judging by the number of them, those old relics.

A pen was placed before her and it was then that she noticed the blank space for her own signature and, with an encouraging nod from Lin, she swirled her own name onto the space, feeling as if she had signed away her soul to Satan himself.

This feeling heightened with the telltale noises that accompanied the sinister silver haired male's arrival by her side.

She stared up at him from her spot on the floor as he gave an ironically kind smile to her and dropped a silver instrument onto the table.

Faye turned to it and blinked as she spotted the knife on the table, now even more sure that the Devil wanted to claim her with the three splodges of red each in the shape of a sinister thumbprint under almost all of the signatures on the list and with the addition of her own name and the imprint of the knife in her mind, she feared that another red spot was going to appear.

She turned away from the three old men and Lin and made a face towards the only one who seemed to give her any form of comfort. That same silver haired man narrowed his eyes before nodding almost encouragingly to her.

Faye lifted the knife with a distinct tremor in her hand, which was immediately silenced by a confident hand across her own. The weary eyed man twisted her wrist to point the tip of the blade against her thumb with a tiny sting.

She took a deep breath and with all of the courage she could muster, she broke the skin and unleashed a flood of red from the busted dam.

Staring at the droplets for a moment, she followed the Syndicate elders' example and pressed her thumb underneath her signature.

And as she removed her thumb, pressed the offered handkerchief against the wound and allowed herself to be lead out of the room, she couldn't help but feel as if she had left her soul behind.

* * *

O.o;; FAYE!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!! ... given me something to write about I suppose... oh well!

Long chapter though! That is because this was originally supposed to be two chapters with the Spike and Jet bit and Faye's psycho speech in one and then her signing the contract in another but I thought I would keep from stretching it so much.

Ah well, please review!


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